2 posts tagged “napa”

Do you play charades? Growing up in a show biz family, I heard stories about legendary “charades” performances from Hollywood’s heyday. Like the time Gene Kelly acted out Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown by running into the room, launching into a baseball slide and simply holding up three fingers.

My family played Relay Charades which differs from normal charades. Essentially, every player is asked to arrive with a themed list of 10 or so topics (Al Pacino films, Coldplay songs, novels with the word “day” in the title, etc.). All players are then assigned to one of two teams, and each team is positioned away from the other in its own room or space. Equidistant from both teams, is a moderator who will relay a list of topics for each team to act out. Play begins when the moderator gives Player 1 from both teams the first topic. They race back to their rooms to act out the topic to their team. Once the team calls out the topic, Player 2 races back to confirm its correctness to the moderator. If correct, the moderator then hands out the second topic. Player 2 then races back to his room and begins to act it out… and so on and so forth until all 10 topics have been answered correctly. The team that finishes first wins that round. During the course of the evening, all players will be given the opportunity to be the moderator and to read from their own list. Still with me?

What makes Relay Charades particularly awesome is that at some point a member of your team will uncover the nature of the theme. All of a sudden the game speeds up tenfold, becoming rapid fire. Using the Al Pacino film theme as an example - Let’s say Player 1 acts out Dog Day Afternoon and Player 2 acts out Scent of a Woman. You can just about guarantee that when Player 3 arrives with the 3^rd topic, he will be greeted by team members screaming out other Pacino films like Godfather, Serpico, Scarface, Scarecrow, and so forth. The secret is in creating themed lists that are initially cryptic but once revealed offer enough awareness to generate some passionate responses.

For instance, what’s the common thread in this assortment of names? George Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, The Cure, John Lennon, Billie Holiday, Carole King, Cole Porter, and the Cardigans.

Give up? Then meet Kat Edmonson, a 25 year old Austin native, who on her debut album has the temerity to cover songs that were made popular by the aforementioned  legends.

With an intriguing voice that recalls Blossom Dearie, Phoebe Snow and Inara George, Edmonson breathes new life into some very familiar songs; Summertime, Night & Day and Angel Eyes. But it’s on lesser known gems like… wait for it… Charade, where Ms. Edmonson really makes you sit up and listen.

Over Kevin Lovejoy’s elegant and sparce arrangement; piano, percussion and Eric Revis’ base line weave a slow, sensuous pulse, Kat stretches out her phrases, embuing each word with significance. Somehow she is able to express wistfuless along with highly extracted lust. If this were wine, it would be made from intense mountain fruit, grown in stressful soil that causes vines to struggle to survive let alone ripen to create a juicy grape crop. Because of its complexity, I'm adding it to the cocktail mix. But should a certain someone linger longingly, beware.

Now click on the clip to your left to compare it with the original, written by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini as the title track for the Stanley Donen film starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Completely different. With its percussive intro and "Bondish" guitar riff, this screams 60's. While lush, it eschews heat, remaining cool to the touch, framing the main motif of this classic romantic thriller. Side note, the screenplay for Charade, written by Peter Stone, is considered by many to be one of the best scripts ever filmed. Take a look at it here.

A final note. Kat made a really charming and inspirational video called Be The Change during the last presidential campaign. I think she's going to be around for awhile - maybe long enough to be the subject of a Charades' list.

If you’re anything like me, the finish is so much harder than the beginning.  At any given time, I’ve got 3 books open, a couple of unfinished projects around the house, and at least two half-baked blog posts (you don’t wanna’ know how hard it was to go live with this one).  I’ve even begun to open a couple of bottles of wine at a time in order to decipher the subtle… well, that’s probably not a fair comparison because the wine always gets finished.

The point is we begin things with such high hopes only to watch as time, distractions and the inherent challenges of any given task wash away our resilience to complete the very thing we started so enthusiastically. That’s why I so admire those with the steely resolve who are able to finish well.

As a young teenager, I was hooked on track; my buddy Mac and I not only watched every track meet on television (and these were the days when they were televised just about every week), we often watched them live at the Coliseum or UCLA’s Drake Stadium. Ron Clarke, Kip Keino, Marty Liquori, Peter Snell, and the magnificent but ill-fated Jim Ryun were my idols.

We even held neighborhood “Olympics” where all the kids in the area would sign up for races and we’d hand out medals to the winners.

So it was when I was in the 7^th grade, we entered an open meet at the Jr. College, running against high school and college athletes. I entered the 880, a brutal half-mile sprint, and while I knew I wouldn’t win I was confident I’d be close. At the first turn, I was part of a small group that broke from the pack; damn, this wasn’t going to be so hard after all. By the end of the back straightaway I was gasping for air and sliding into last place. As I started the 2^nd and final lap, I was dead last, a good 20 yards behind the next runner. And it only got worse. Thank god for Mac who sensed what was going on and ran with me on the inside grass, exhorting me to finish. And finish I did, but not before experiencing the final humiliation. I was so far behind the other runners that they started the next race before I was done.

Did I learn something besides that I shouldn’t run the 880 against older guys? That day, no, it totally sucked. But later on I realized that it felt satisfying to finish what I’d started even if I was last. So I try to finish everything I start, regardless of how long it takes, concentrating on the process rather than the outcome. Like my first cheesecake (process was great, it tasted even better).

From Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize winning musical, Sunday in the Park with George, comes Finishing the Hat, sung memorably by Mandy Patinkin. 

Listen to the perfect blending of voice, piano, strings and horns (god I’m a sucker for a French horn); the piano picking up the dot, dot, dot of Seurat’s pointillist style of brush stroking. And the insightful lyric, so honest about the cost involved in finishing the hat or the book, script, song, or any other intense individual endeavor (no, Twitter tweets don’t count).

"But the woman who won't wait for you knows
That, however you live,
There's a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,
Finishing a hat...
Starting on a hat..
Finishing a hat...
Look, I made a hat...
Where there never was a hat."

Add this to the wine country picnic mix and make a stop at Dean  & Deluca off Highway 29 in St. Helena.

Pick up some sliced Parano and salami, some dijon, a loaf of crusty sourdough and crack open a Rhone blend and then just marvel at the wonder of it all. But for god’s sake, leave room for dinner. You’ve still got to finish well.